


Promises Broken

by silkinsilence



Series: Promises [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 07:50:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1042247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silkinsilence/pseuds/silkinsilence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zuko deals with consequences. Azula deals with shadows. Nobody gets what they wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promises Broken

**Author's Note:**

> A sequel to Promises Kept, but will read fairly well if you haven't read Promises Kept. Warning: it's dark, especially at the end, so proceed with caution.

_Promises Broken_

"What do you  _mean_ , she's unfit to see visitors?"

The woman retained admirable poise when overshadowed by the Fire Lord. Zuko supposed anyone who worked with the insane had to be practically immune to fear. But even so, having a man looming at least a foot over her with an impatient glare on his face couldn't be pleasant.

"I am sorry, Fire Lord Zuko," she said, taking a careful step back. The gold-and-navy emblem on her white uniform caught the light, sparkling briefly. Zuko inadvertently reread the name he already knew by heart.

 _Royal Fire Nation Institute for the Mentally Unsound_.

"She was fit to see visitors yesterday! I saw her! I spoke with her! How can she be unfit today?" Zuko knew it wasn't this woman's fault, knew that he shouldn't be yelling at her. But he was so close. He hadn't slept the previous night. How could he? The lure of his mother was immediate and uncontrollable. He had planned to begin a journey today. He had planned to go and find her…

He tried not to think about the guilt that still weighed heavily upon him.

"Her condition is unstable, Fire Lord," the woman said evenly. "She has been…since her return yesterday night, she has been hallucinating."

"So snap her out of it! Do your damned job!" If Zuko had been calmer, perhaps he would have realized how cold his words were. Yet he wasn't calm. He felt as if he could feel his mother slipping away through his fingers, like water, like something he couldn't hold on to. He couldn't believe that Azula had become his one link to Ursa—Azula, who despised their mother. Azula, precious daughter of Ozai. Azula, whom he had _used_ …

 _She agreed to it! She agreed to it!_  His mind desperately screamed at him, searching for any way out. He couldn't accept blame. He wouldn't accept blame.  _She…she…agreed…_

The woman sighed and lifted her eyes to the ceiling, as if begging for patience. Zuko resisted the urge to grab her and shake her. Did the doctors act this way around Azula? No wonder they had to keep her in a  _straitjacket._ Ugly, ugly word. She would burn them simply for looking at her like that.

"Due to her unstable condition, she is currently under heavy sedation," she explained, as if Zuko was a child. "She will likely not wake until late tonight, when she will need to undergo her routine therapies—"

"She doesn't sleep at night?"

The woman paused and gave him a look—not condescension, but something like confusion, or disbelief. "…The princess does not sleep of her own volition. At this point, all her sleep is drugged."

"Why doesn't she sleep by herself?" With another dark pang of guilt, Zuko realized that these were things he should have already known. He should have known what Azula's condition was, what treatments she was undergoing, if she had seen progress…

"She does not allow herself to," said the woman. "Her doctor, Kenichi, suspects it is because she is afraid of her dreams, but we cannot confirm—"

"Scared of her dreams? Azula isn't scared of anything!" Zuko didn't realize how desperate his voice sounded. Undoubtedly the woman took it as desperation for his sister's health, since she placed a calming hand on his shoulder.

"We will inform you when the princess is ready to see visitors again." After a few seconds, when it became apparent that he had no more questions to ask, she bowed and departed away from the chamber.

Zuko collapsed into a chair, one hand over his face. After a few minutes, when he was sure that the woman was out of earshot, he let out a yell of frustration, digging his fingers into his skin.

Of course, there were always people around to hear the Fire Lord.

"Fire Lord Zuko!" A guard ran into the room, the sounds of his heavy boots preceding him as he came to a stop in the doorway. "Are you all right?"

Zuko stood wearily and nodded. "I'm fine. At ease. I'm sorry for disturbing you. Resume your position." When the guard saluted and turned the other way, Zuko spoke again. "On second thought, can you find Mai for me?"

"Of course!" Another salute, and the guard was gone down the hall. Zuko sighed and left the room himself, traveling into wider chambers where the afternoon sunlight penetrated. He felt sick, trying to keep his mind off of his sister. What exactly was wrong with Azula? Whenever he asked the doctors, he got the same answers—shrugs, and "she seems to have suffered some form of breakdown, Fire Lord Zuko…" Eventually he stopped asking. The lack of variance in their answers hinted at a darker truth: they themselves didn't know.

He remembered, a month ago, sitting in front of a cell and staring at his sister. Three years in the asylum had hollowed her form, carved out her cheeks and her eye sockets, thinness making her look even more deranged. She had been calm, that day. Calm enough that they brought her out of her cell, arms locked in her jacket, chained to her chair, chained to the floor.

He had watched her dig teeth into her bottom lip, tongue spreading the blood across her mouth. He had remembered her lipstick and felt ill. Was it a shield, necessary to speak to her brother?

Zuko wondered whether they watched her carefully enough to stop her from biting herself. He wondered if she was in the jacket all day.

He wondered how she could be so similar to the Azula he had known, yet entirely different.

" _I need your help, Zula."_

" _Oh?"_

"… _I want to find Mother…"_

Azula had been so sure that she could get the information from Ozai. At the time, Zuko assumed she was telling him what he wanted to hear.

Now he didn't know.

" _I'll need to be alone with him, Zuzu, and I'll need to dress the part."_

" _What do you-?"_

" _You'll see."_

Had she done it for a brief day of freedom? Of being treated like a princess again? Had she done it to see their father once more?

Zuko didn't know.

He remembered when he had realized her intentions. The disbelief. The horror. Mai had been alarmed to find him, in the middle of the night, sitting out in the gardens in the dark and trying his best not to vomit. Her soft hands on his back, quiet words asking questions he didn't want to answer.

" _Zuko, what's happened?"_

"… _Nothing."_

He really was a horrible liar. He imagined telling her the truth.

" _My unstable sister has volunteered to gather information from our father through…"_

_There is something wrong with that child._

Zuko buried his head in his hands. There was something wrong with him. How could he have allowed Azula to do that? Was it his fault, today, that she was sedated and lying in a cell, hallucinating? Azula had been right. He had chosen their mother over her.

_She agreed to it! She agreed to it...!_

The mantra was becoming weak.

_He would never touch me again._

Zuko jolted awake in the night, a single memory ringing through his skull as clear as an alarm bell. Next to him, Mai stirred, but did not awaken. Zuko panted, eyes wide, his breath catching in his throat. He was an idiot. He had been so, so naïve. What had he-?!

Azula had spoken, yesterday, the way she always spoke. The words fell from her lips lightly, without consequence, as if they were secretly meaningless. It was so easy to believe her tone, to think she was baiting him, to think she was lying. After all, Azula always lies…

_He would never touch me again._

Zuko had thought Azula meant…pain. Ozai's words, as deadly as knives. Ozai's actions, vicious and brutal. Ozai's mind, viewing his children as dispensable.

Not—not _that_.

"Azula," he hissed, the word escaping like a sob. " _Damn_  it, Azula, why did you-?"

"Zuko?" Mai was opening her eyes, blinking the sleep from her eyes. "Zuko, what's going on?"

"Go back to sleep," he said, but his voice broke on the last word.

"Zuko?" There was alarm in her voice now. She sat up. Could she see the look in his eyes, the terror, the lack of belief? The pain?

Zuko bent over and buried his head in his hands. For the second time that day, he let out a broken half-yell, half-sob. For the second time that day, his guards ran into the room. He didn't move while Mai assured them that Zuko was still alive.

* * *

For the second time in as many days, Zuko made the trip up through the prison to see his father. This time his guards stayed behind, though they had been extremely reluctant to do so.

"Fire Lord Zuko, are you sure you want to be alone with him?" the prison guards all asked, repeatedly, like he had a choice. No, Zuko didn't want to be alone with their father, but if Azula had done it, so could he. Zuko wasn't about to spill his family's grim secrets in a single sitting. He probably had enough people eager for rebellion that he didn't need to turn his allies against him as well.

The heavy key the warden had given him twisted easily in the lock. Zuko waited with a hand on the bolt, took a deep breath, and pushed.

Ozai was sitting up on his cot, a cup in his hands. Was he actually humming, or was that a figment of Zuko's imagination? Either way, there was no mistaking the hollow smile that traversed his father's face.

Zuko tried not to think exactly what could have inspired this merry mood of his father's.

"Fire Lord Zuko." If anything, the smirk grew as Ozai took in his son. "To what do I owe the honor? It's been, what, a year? I thought you left me for dead until I received my present yesterday. Quite kind of you."

Zuko stared at his father, a hand limply resting on the door. "What do you-?"

"I assume she was released on your command?" A hint of impatience in Ozai's voice. He lifted his cup and toasted Zuko. "I thank you."

"You aren't sorry?" Zuko didn't understand. It was as if he had been enveloped in a numbness, through which his father's distant words cut. He couldn't believe it. He didn't think he could stand to believe it, to believe that this man had no remorse. It all only pointed to a conclusion Zuko had already reached.

Ozai's smile disappeared. He furrowed his brow, as if confused by Zuko's words. "What should I be sorry for?"

Zuko attempted to swallow the bile that was rising in his throat. He didn't notice that his hands had both fallen, limply. He was a statue, frozen in terror and horror all at once.

"Just tell me." Zuko's voice echoed strangely in the cell, or maybe it was that his ears had ceased functioning properly. "Was that the first time?"

"You'll have to be more specific." Ozai had put his cup on the floor and was studying one ragged sleeve of his tattered shirt, feigning disinterest. It was an expression so reminiscent of Azula that Zuko's stomach gave another heave.

"You know what I'm talking about, you-!" Zuko was flying forward, his hands forming claws around the bars. It took every last ounce of self-control he had to not throw fire. He wanted to make this man writhe in pain, make him atone for his sins.

But perhaps, what stopped Zuko was the knowledge in the back of his mind that this was not only Ozai's fault.

"I—" Zuko fell to his knees, still clenching the bars. Ozai stared down at his son, disdain and a hint of fear mixing in his eyes.

"Well, since you did make the long trip to see me…" Ozai's voice had grown silkier and softer as the conversation progressed, the opposite of Zuko's shouts. "As I hope you were smart enough to reason, of course it wasn't the first time, idiot child."

Zuko felt like a boy again, kneeling under his father's critical eye. His heart was echoing in his ears. Was he breathing? Had he forgotten to breathe? How could Ozai stand there and say these things and feel nothing? How could he?

"You—you demon!" Fire was swirling about Zuko's hands. He didn't—he couldn't—think. After three years of holding his anger inside, three years of keeping his temper cool and his head level, he was going to snap. How could Aang have had the power to save this man? He undoubtedly, undisputedly, unquestionably  _deserved to die_ —

"Zuko!"

The door to the cell slammed open. Father and son turned together to look up at the tall woman standing there, a stiletto held lightly in one hand.

"You followed me?" The fire vanished. Zuko suddenly found the strength to get to his feet. The still calmness in Mai's form seemed to permeate the cell. Even Ozai's smirk vanished, his face settling back into old lines of coldness.

"You expected me not to, after last night?" Mai crossed her arms, tapping a finger against the blade in her hand. "I want to know what's going on."

"If you're going to have a lovers' tiff, please do it somewhere other than my cell." Ozai shifted on his cot and picked up his cup again. He seemed to have lost all interest in the situation.

"Don't you dare speak," Zuko threatened, raising a hand again. His anger was still there, bubbling just below the surface, but he did not want to lose it in front of this man. He would not give Ozai the satisfaction of getting under his skin. "Mai, come on."

Zuko led the way out of the cell, trying to avoid meeting his father's eyes. Mai followed him, arms still crossed, the question still engraved in her face.

When the door was locked and bolted, the guards back in place, Zuko slumped against the stone wall, a hand pressed over his mouth.

"Fire Lord Zuko, Lady Mai, we have your palanquins prepared," one of the soldiers said, bowing. Zuko managed to stand upright, and nodded.

"Let's go."

The long way home was hell. Whenever Zuko looked over at the other palanquin, Mai was there, staring at him with the same steely expression. Eventually, he stopped looking, and stared at his hands instead.

Azula, alone in the asylum. Azula, broken and desperate. Azula, whored out to their father by her brother.

He really had betrayed her.

Zuko tried not to think about many things. He tried not to think about Ozai looming over a young Azula—how young? How young?—touching, grasping, holding, hurting. How could he not have known? How could he never have suspected? How could he have done this?

_What have I done?_

The instant he was safely back inside his rooms, Mai was there, her hands gentle and supporting but her face still demanding answers.

"Zuko, what is going on? Why are you visiting him? You haven't gone in years."

"I had to," Zuko said, his voice muffled. He was speaking through his hands, unable to meet her eyes. "I had to after last night."

"What happened last night?" One hand lifted his chin to force him to look at her. The worry in her eyes made Zuko want to sob. He would have preferred anger.

"I've done something horrible," he said, his tone almost wondering. "I've done something unforgivable."

She was silent, waiting. Zuko had to say it. He had to tell her. His mouth worked, wordless. He tried to form the words in his mind, but even there, they were too grim to think.

"…I brought Azula home from the asylum."

Mai's eyes narrowed, briefly flicking from side to side, as if she expected Azula to appear there in the room with them. "Last night? Where is she?"

"They brought her back. It wasn't permanent. It…" Zuko buried his face in her hands. "I used her."

There was a long silence. Zuko was afraid to lift his head and look at Mai's face. With his eyes closed, he felt safer. It was cool and dark, a place where he didn't have to see her judging him, see her withdrawing from him.

Then he abruptly imagined Azula's face instead, and his eyes snapped open.

"I don't understand." Mai's tone was as level as ever, but there was a level of strain in it. Zuko hated that sound. He didn't want to hurt her.

He lifted his head, but still found himself unable to look at her. He rested his hands in his lap and stared down at them. Zuko took a deep breath and attempted to calm himself. It would be easier to say the words if he didn't think about what they really meant.

"A month ago, I visited Azula in the asylum."

"Why?"

Did he really need a reason to visit his unstable sister? Zuko bit back an angry response. After all, he had an ulterior motive in visiting her. Mai was honest—she hadn't visited Azula once, true to her word from the beginning.

"…I've been visiting my father too."

There was no response this time. Zuko risked a glance at Mai's face. It was still calm, though he could tell her lips had tightened.

"I have to find Mother."

Mai spoke. "Did you really think your father would tell you?"

"I had to try!" Zuko's hands made fists on his lap, nails digging sharply into his palms. "I had to try, Mai. I didn't know what to think. I thought he couldn't be utterly heartless. He married the woman. He had to have loved her."

The look on Mai's face said exactly what she thought about that, and Zuko found himself rushing to explain further. He had to make her understand. He couldn't stand her sitting there, viewing him as alien, irrational.

"I mean…I thought I could move him. I offered him better quarters! He turned them down. I don't think he wants her found."

Mai's hand moved gently on to his lap, unfurling his fist.

"And Azula?"

"She was his favorite. If he was going to tell someone, it was going to be her." The words sounded so cold, falling from his lips that way. True, that had been his thought process. Now, though, he felt revolted by this display of heartlessness toward his sister. Had he even thought about her? Or, selfishly, simply about himself?

"So you brought her here from the asylum," Mai concluded. Zuko shook his head.

"No. I went to see her first…to ask her." He looked up, his eyes fixed on a far point on the wall as he remembered. He remembered Azula, sitting cross-legged in her cell, golden eyes fixed patiently on her face. "She was—Mai, she was so lucid that day. It was like nothing had happened. I asked her, and she considered, and she agreed, on one condition."

Mai was silent once more, her face shadowed. Was Zuko imagining the frown? He couldn't see her features clearly enough to tell.

"I didn't think. I didn't realize until just a few days ago, how she intended to get the information from him. I wondered how she could be so sure. Then I realized."

Zuko felt his stomach contract again, and his head drooped. Mai's hands were still this time.

"Realized what, Zuko?" There was definitely an edge to her voice. Zuko wasn't imagining it. He couldn't say the words. He couldn't. He couldn't help her hate him more.

"She was going to—she was going to…"

The words stuck in his throat. Too repulsive to say them out loud. Too disgusting to say them out loud. His sister, slipping into their father's cell, one hand untying the knot on her robe, her face still but for her lips, curling into a smile.

"Fuck him?"

Mai said it for him. Her words slipped into silence. Zuko looked up at her. Her face was still impassive, but there was something else there this time. Perhaps it was sadness. Perhaps it was shock at what she had just said.

"You knew?" Zuko's breathing came faster, faster. Surely she didn't. Surely she couldn't have kept such a secret from him.

"Not until just now." Mai's face softened. Her arms circled around him again, rubbing soft circles on his chest. Zuko felt her head resting against his back. He slumped back into her grip. It was easy to loosen when she was there, comforting him. "Zuko, it's not your fault. It was her choice. Stop blaming yourself. Azula has done horrible things before…"

"You don't understand!" Zuko jumped away from her, on his feet. "It _is_ my fault! I should have realized! It was him, it was all him!"

"You mean Ozai?" Mai stood slowly as well. "Azula isn't a puppet. She isn't just a child anymore. She can make her own decisions. Ozai's locked up. He can't exert control over her anymore."

"She's not in her right mind!" Fire flared briefly around Zuko's fists and then disappeared. "She still thinks…I don't know! She probably thinks he's still there! You haven't seen her, Mai; you don't know what she's like!"

"You're right. I haven't seen her." For the first time, anger was audible in Mai's voice. "Maybe I would have if you hadn't snuck around behind my back. Maybe I would know what you were talking about if you didn't want to lie to me."

Zuko laughed incredulously. "Is that what this is? Mai, this isn't about us! This isn't—it isn't about you, it's about—"

"About your sister!" Mai's voice rose slightly. "And your father! It's always about your family, Zuko, always! Even now, even with both of them locked up, they still control you. Can't you see what they're doing? Your father just wants to use what little power he has left! Azula's just playing her games! It's the same as it was before, and you're falling for it, just like you always did!"

"That's not true!" Zuko was shouting. His voice dwarfed Mai's. "You're wrong! I know you hate my family. I know you hate her. But please, just listen to me!"

"I've done nothing but listen, Zuko, and listen and listen," said Mai. Her lips were drawing thinner and thinner, until her mouth was just a line. "I've seen them hurt you before. I've seen them manipulate you before. And now that I have enough power to stop it, I will."

"She's  _not_ hurting me! Why won't you believe me?" Zuko couldn't control himself well enough. The fire flared up around him, bursting into life around his fists and swirling up his arms before he was able to force it back into his veins.

Mai stumbled back, tripping over the hem of her long robe in her haste to get away from the wave of heat. She fell against a wooden chest of drawers and slowly steadied herself.

"Mai—I'm so sorry!" Zuko tried to grab her, tried to draw her close to him, but Mai's slim hands were on his chest, pushing him away.

"Excuse me," she said stiffly, and then she left the room.

The door closed behind her. Zuko stood alone in a steadily darkening chamber. He couldn't bring himself to follow her. He didn't want another argument. He certainly didn't want to hurt her. How could he have lost control like that? It had been ages since he had bent without meaning to.

His family really was poisoning him.

When the room was almost completely dark, Zuko finally found the strength to move himself across the floor and seat himself in the desk. He lit the oil lamp with a small flame and rummaged in the drawers for paper and a pen.

He dipped the nib into the inkwell, but couldn't think of what he wanted to say, exactly, so a large black puddle steadily grew beneath where his pen was balanced in his hand. Zuko, absentminded as he was, didn't even notice.

" _Dear Uncle_ …"

The two words took an infinite amount of energy from Zuko. As he wrote them, he couldn't help but imagine his uncle's face. Would Iroh be upset with him? Disgusted at Zuko's lack of a moral code, Zuko's condoning of such sins? Or, worse, would Iroh side with Mai? Decry Azula as irredeemable, a monster, and advocate she be left to rot?

In the end, Zuko didn't have the heart to say why he was writing.

" _Dear Uncle,_

_Something's come up. Please come home._

_Zuko_ "

He rolled it up and sealed it with hot wax before setting it aside. He would visit the mews later and send it. For now, he turned to a second sheet of paper.

" _Aang, it's Zuko. I need your advice. You showed my father mercy. You believe that everybody deserves it. And now I need help giving it to Azula_."

He couldn't finish writing the missive. Halfway down the page, his tears started smearing the ink, leaving a ruined mess of paper that was certainly not legible.

And Zuko laid his head down, using intricately carved wood as a pillow, and let the tears fall as they would, just him and the shadows and the silence and the candle burning low, and the reminder of a sister, somewhere in the distance, who was suffering.

* * *

They had  _sedated_  her, yes, but sedatives  _wore off_ , and they wouldn't give her another one because too many doses would be _bad_  for her—

She wasn't in her usual cell. In fact, she didn't seem to be in a cell at all. Azula's eyes opened, closed, and opened again, as she desperately fought the effects of the small amount of tranquilizer that remained in her bloodstream. Slowly keeping her eyelids open became less and less of a battle, until she was able hold them open long enough to look around her.

She couldn't move, and not just because of the sedative. Her muscles, arms and legs, strained against straps or ropes that were holding her down against a mattress.

Azula bucked her head back and felt it collide with metal. Dazed, she fell back against the pillow and ceased struggling in favor of looking around.

Her eyes took in a dark, plain ceiling. Nothing familiar. Most of the rooms in the asylum were wood or brick, but this looked metallic. Like a cage.

The thought made Azula panic slightly, and she recoiled again against the ropes. No use. Her energy was gone quickly. She jerked her head from side to side, trying to see anything more, anything at all, but there were tall restraints on either side of her cheeks, keeping her from seeing or even turning her head too far.

What was going on? What had happened last? Where had she been before sedation? Her cell, probably. But Azula couldn't remember much, except for needles and the patronizing voices of her doctors and…

No. She stopped struggling, eyes wide, chest rising and falling as she panted. She remembered voices, and  _skin_ , and a prison entirely different from her own.

She shut down the thoughts. Azula focused on biting her lip, on tensing her muscles, on anything but those vague and hazy memories that became clearer the longer she tried not to think about them.

"Princess Azula, do you remember where you are?" A man in spectacles and all in white leaned over her. Azula, startled, felt her heart skip a beat even as the air within her mouth grew hotter.

When the tongue of flame erupted from between her lips, the doctor jumped back with skill suggesting he had good practice dodging the princess's fire. The blue dissipated in the air above Azula, and she drew another deep breath, ready to repeat the process. They wouldn't put the damned thing in her mouth again, they wouldn't, she wouldn't let them—

"She's too unstable to be put back in her cell," a voice said. Azula heard the sound of a pen scratching on paper. Taking notes on their little experimental subject, were they? It had stopped bothering her a long, long time ago.

"Full-body restraints are best for the time being," a second voice agreed. "Perhaps, if she remains conscious, the shock will wear off…"

They were ignoring her. How dare they? They just stood there, out of sight, always discussing her as if she were an animal, something that lacked comprehension. She was smarter than all of them. All of them! And fire burst out of Azula's mouth again, and again, as she drew breath after long, deep breath.

Something cool and thin pressed against the inside of Azula's wrist. She froze. The fire died out. Her mind began racing again. She was hyperventilating.

"You leave us no choice but to put your gag back in," one of the voices said. It sounded like a parent reprimanding a naughty child. As always, as always, they were infantilizing her, patronizing her…

Azula had no idea how they had constructed this particular torture, the piece of wire placed against her wrist. The brainchild of some mechanical genius, no doubt. It was somehow able to mimic lightning, sending a pulse and a current through her body. The shocks, when administered, were nigh unbearable. It was an effective control mechanism, even for the most unruly patients—patients like her.

Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as a pair of gloved hands descended over her mouth. This device, she knew, had been created specifically for her. A metal circle rested between her lips and teeth, preventing any fire from escaping her mouth. Pieces of cloth, damp with a flame retardant, hung down to fill her mouth with a sickly taste. It was humiliating and made it much, much harder to breathe.

The doctor's fingers found their way into her mouth, pressing the cloth into place, then attempting to settle the metal shield.

Azula didn't let him. Forgetting the wire at her wrist, she bit, and hard.

The glove split. She tasted blood. The doctor's oath was music to her ears.

Seconds later, the only sound in her ears was a faint hum of electricity.

Azula couldn't hear herself screaming as the current ran through her, hitting every nerve, filling her mind with nothing but pain. She couldn't even thrash, bound as she was by the restraints on every part of her body. It could have lasted seconds, or millennia, but it ended.

The gag was firmly in place now.

Azula realized that she wasn't lying on a stretcher any longer. Beneath her back was tile, marble, cold and unforgiving, refusing to heat despite its intimate contact with the warmth of her skin.

She was naked, and bound at the wrists and ankles, unable to move even her head. The dark metal of the ceiling above was gone, replaced with tall pillars, tapestries, and the warm orange glow of fire. She was in the throne room, Azula realized.

A few seconds later and she realized that her wrists were connected to one of the pillars by a length of rope. She was, essentially, on a leash.

A figure was standing over her. Azula tried vainly to struggle against the rope, to get traction against the floor, but she couldn't move. She was helpless. Powerless.

"Oh, how I've missed you," her father murmured into her ear as he bent down over her. "You returned to me. I always knew you would."

She couldn't speak. The gag was still in her mouth, blocking her fire, blocking her words, blocking anything she could use to defend herself.

One of Ozai's hands pushed her back against the pillar. It was scalding hot. Azula couldn't cry out.

"Don't scream," Ozai said, looming over her with a terrible smile on his face. "You don't want the guards to hear us, do you?"

Azula tried to scream as he descended on her.

" _It's still too dangerous to administer another sedative," a white-coated man concluded, staring down at the princess. "We need to let the hallucinations run their course."_

_One by one, doctors filed out, leaving a princess alone with her demons._


End file.
